Theo – The Difficult Times of the Church
- social structure in 10th century
Fall of Rome and the Germanic Invasions
- the early part of the 5th century
- Germanic tribes pressed on by Huns, the Visigoths and the
Vandals – Germanic Barbarians
- the mighty empire of the West and converted instrument of
Christianity destroyed and ruined by the barbarians, shocked
and fear overwhelmed the entire empire
Impact of Germanic Invasions and Collapse of Rome on
Western Europe
- disruption of trade: invasions; roads were unsafe to travel
- business and trade collapsed
- money became scarce
Roman Decline (Handout: Decline Factors)
Internal factors:
- political: civil wars, weak leaders
- economic: inflation, over-taxation
- social
- Christianity: church leaders took power from emperors
- removed unifying power of paganisms
External factors:
- invasions: barbarians, muslims
- economic: trade disruptions, trade deficits, economic
stagnation
- size of empire: military overworked, cultural decay
Continuation: Fall of Rome
- Invasion by the Germans caused the decline of the Roman
Empire and the Church
- During the early part of the 5th century, many Germanic tribes,
pressed on by the Huns
- Huns: a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the
Caucasus, & Eastern Europe, between the 4th-6th century AD
- 410: Rome was captured and sacked by the Visigoths (were
the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples
referred to collectively as the Goths)
- To those who were faithful to the old pagan religion of Rome,
such misfortune was deemed as a “punishment for abandoning
the old religion”
- To some Christian believers, such tragedy can be attributed as
“punishment to their sins”
Rise of Islam
- submission to the will of Allah
- Mohammed preaches the word of Allah
- entrance to the Ka’ba
- Islam: in the 7th century, was born in modern day Saudi Arabia
- Through the leadership of the great prophet Mohammed, fled
Mecca for Medina
- This is known as Hijra, the beginning of Moslem era spread
Islam to the entire Mediterranean world
- Unable to rally the Christians and the Jews, Mohamed turned
against both and began to proclaim his religion as a world-wide-
one
- The Persian empires opposed them, the Arabs, who
constituted a new military force, hurled themselves into a series
of lightning conquests
- They accepted death enthusiastically in their ‘striving on the
road to God (jihad, often translated ‘holy war’)
- Jerusalem was captured in 638, at the same time Syria and
Palestine
- Alexandria fell in 642, Persia in 651 to North America, Arabs &
Spain
- The expansion of Islam conquered Christian territories,
including the Holy Land
- brought converts to the Islamic faith
- spread Islamic influence and culture
- established structures that were important to the Islamic
believer
Evil of Feudalism
Jean Comboy: Basic Understanding of the Concept of
Fedualism
- Land belong to the warrior who defended it
- He put himself under the protection of a more powerful lord
who would grant his vassal the possession
- The Church, which owned large areas of land, was caught up
in his system
- Every holder of ecclesiastical office had the use of a piece
land, which provided him a living
- The bishop was the lord and vassal in the same way as the
laity
Continuation: Evil of Feudalism
- Feudalism dominated the people’s way of life, even influenced
the Church on its attitude towards the world and its people
- Ecclesiastical positions or ranks became targets of trade and
business when people started to sell their positions and offices
- Such act, deemed to be sinful, is known as simony
- Simony: the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges
- ex: pardons or benefices
- The competition to own, control and to dominate became a
culture of corruption and greed to those who aimed for greater
property and power
Schism: Separation of the West and the East
- Schism: defined as “a division of a Church into factions
because of differences in doctrine”
- Roman Western Church claims that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father and the Son (filioque)
- Eastern Church maintains that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father but not from the Son
- The “Spirit comes through the Son, but holds that the Father is
the source and origin of the whole divinity
- An exchange of excommunication followed, an action that
would bring long separation between the Roman Catholic
Church and Eastern Orthodox Church
- happened gradually over centuries and became official in the
year 1054
- It had political and religious causes
- The political cause was the splitting of the Roman Empire
- 400s AD: the Roman Empire split into a western empire
(capital at Rome) & an eastern empire (capital at
Constantinople)
Schism 1054
- the Eastern Christian churches (led by the patriarch of
Constantinople, Michael Cerularius)
- the Western church (led by Pope Leo IX)
- The mutual excommunications by the pope and the patriarch in
1054 became a watershed in church history
Great Schism
Western:
- Roman Catholicism: Pope has authority over all other
bishops, kings & emperors
- Services conducted in Latin
- Priests cannot marry
- Divorce is not permitted
Eastern:
- Orthodoxy: Patriarchs & other bishops lead the church as a
collective group
- Services conducted in Greek or in local languages
- Priest may marry
- Divorce is allowed under certain circumstances
Crusades
- were organized by western European Christians after centuries
of Muslim wars of expansion
- primary objectives: to stop the expansion of Muslim states, to
reclaim for Christianity the Holy Land in the Middle East, and to
recapture territories that had formerly been Christian
- Considered at the time to be divinely sanctioned, these
campaigns, involving often ruthless battles, are known as the
Crusades
Inquisitions
- A court established by the Roman Catholic Church in the
thirteenth century to try cases of heresy and other offenses
against the church
- Those convicted could be handed over to the civil authorities
for punishment, including execution
- Once a heretic is found, he/she is given an appropriate trial
and corresponding measure, depending on the case at hand
- An ecclesiastical authorities issued their vigilant decision
against the recurrence of heresies
- But prudence was exercised for instance, “Wason, the bishop
of Liege, sent a letter to the bishop of Chalons in 1054 reminding
him that a bishop cannot demand the death of heretics
- But the repression of heresies took an ugly turn
- Religious and civil authorities elevated the heresy as a crime
and worst, named it as an act of “high treason”
What was the purpose of the Inquisition in the eyes of the
church?
- At the outset, the main focus was on Jews and “judaizers” —
Christian converts of Jewish ancestry who were accused of
secretly adhering to Judaism
- The Roman Inquisition, created to fight the Reformation, & run
from the Vatican, doesn't come to an end until the 20th century
Protestant Reformation (15th -16th century)
- events of circumstances leading to reformation:
- Stop the abuses!
- The Church must Reform! was the clamor of the early
reformers towards the Catholic Church at that time
- black death: known as the Pestilence, the Great Plague or the
Plague, or less commonly the Black Plague
- one of the most devastating pandemics in human history,
resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75-200 million people
in Eurasia (largest continent on Earth, comprising all of
Europe and Asia) and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351
- papal controversy: The Catholic Church was enveloped with
a great controversy created by a few of its own authorities
- 1389: The College of Cardinals elected Pope Urban VI, but
for some reasons, recanted their previous decision and
formally installed Clement VII as the new pope by 1394
- The 3rd third pope, Alexander V, was named in Pisa through
council
- unworthy popes on the throne of peter: Pope in the middle
ages, were subjects of envy among the powerful and ambitious
because of the “absolute power and the wealth of the papacy”
- Pope Alexander VI: came from a “corrupt Borgia family;
infamous for his political intrigues, mistresses and children
- Often used his children’s marriages to make political
alliances and held lavish orgies in the papal palace after
their wedding
- Innocent III went beyond his claim in saying that he is “the
Lord of the World,” a semidivine figure who was “below God
but above man”
- The lay people aware of the corruption and excesses of their
religious leaders lost their fidelity and respect towards them
- Slowly, this situation led them to sow seeds of contempt and
aversion to their leaders
- selling of indulgence: One particularly well-known Catholic
method of exploitation in the Middle Ages was the practice of
selling indulgences, a monetary payment of penalty which,
supposedly, absolved one of past sins and/or released one from
purgatory after death
- “for every coin that rings is a soul in purgatory that springs”
When did the Catholic Church stop selling indulgences?
- While reasserting the place of indulgences in the salvific
process, the Council of Trent condemned “all base gain for
securing indulgences”
- 1563, and Pope Pius V abolished the sale of indulgences in
1567
- The system & its underlying theology otherwise remained
intact
Reformers
- emerged to condemned their excesses and offered their own
teachings and practice
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
- a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and
a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation
- ordained to the priesthood in 1507
- Luther was extraordinarily successful as a monk
- He plunged into prayer, fasting, and ascetic practices— going
without sleep, enduring bone-chilling cold without a blanket, and
flagellating himself
- he later commented, "If anyone could have earned heaven by
the life of a monk, it was I
- he nailed his famous 95 theses on the door of the Church at
Wittenberg as his “protest” to the Catholic Church – an act
that would bring Luther to separation from the Church and to
an eventual birth of Protestant movement
- Abhorred and condemned the practice of selling indulgences
preached by the church at that time, especially since it
involved the monetary purchase of a certificate, among other
things
What were Martin Luther's main ideas?
- His central teachings, that the Bible is the central source of
religious authority and that salvation is reached through faith and
not deeds, shaped the core of Protestantism
- Lutherans believe that humans are saved from their sins by
God's grace alone (Sola Gratia), through faith alone (Sola Fide),
on the basis of Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura)
- Orthodox Lutheran theology holds that God made the world,
including humanity, perfect, holy and sinless
- 1517: Martin Luther published his 95 Theses in an attempt to
get the Roman Catholic Church to stop selling indulgences, or
'get out of hell free' cards
- Luther did not think the Church had the authority to grant such
indulgences, especially not for money
Why did Martin Luther leave Catholic?
- The message of 95 Theses gave the summary and expressed
the feelings of many of his peers already had about the
corruption of Christ's teachings
- Luther illustrated the spiritual, material, and psychological
truths behind abuses in the practice of buying and selling
indulgences
- Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507
- He came to reject several teachings and practices of the
Roman Catholic Church
- he disputed the view on indulgences
Legacies to Protestantism:
- The condemnation of the sale of indulgence
- The translation of the Bible into the vernacular (German
language) in order to make it available to the ordinary people
- consideration of Baptism and Eucharist as the only valid
sacraments
- His attack on the veneration of saints and Marian devotions
- The Sacred Scripture as the only authority of Christian
teaching (sola scriptura, scripture alone)
- His famous doctrine on justification by faith alone (sola fide,
faith alone)
Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)
- Huldrych Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531)
- a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland
- 1518: Zwingli became the pastor of the Grossmünster in
Zürich, where he began to preach ideas on reform of the
Catholic Church
- “began to abolish the Mass itself”, replaced Mass with
Scripture reading, prayer, sermons, no music
- Challenge the legitimacy of some of the sacraments
- Began to seize Church property, rejected celibacy and the
covenants and the monasteries were suppressed
- Abolished Pilgrimages, veneration of Saints, Clerical celibacy &
Papal Authority
- Claimed as far as saying that the Holy Eucharist is just an
ordinary, memorial meal
- thus, “ Jesus was not really present in the Eucharist”
John Calvin (1509-1564)
- Aug 13, 2019: Martin Luther's successor as the preeminent
Protestant theologian, made a powerful impact on the
fundamental doctrines of Protestantism
- Born in France in 1509
- theologian/ecclesiastical statesman John Calvin was Martin
Luther's successor as the preeminent Protestant
- Was the Protestant reformer known for his influential writing,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, which eventually became a “
handbook of Protestant doctrine”
- The Church is the “company of the elect”
- He put primacy on the Sacred Scripture as a source of belief,
rejected the papacy and stressed on divine grace for salvation
- predestination: he taught that “God has already determined
out destiny and that God indeed allows many to be damned to
manifest divine justice
Counter Reformation: The Catholic Response
- Counter-Reformation served to solidify doctrine that many
Protestants were opposed to:
- such as the authority of the pope & the veneration of saints
- eliminated many of the abuses & problems that had initially
inspired the Reformation, such as the sale of indulgences for
the remission of sin
Catholic Counter Reformation
Leader-Pope Paul III:
- calls the council of Trent in 1545
- reaffirmed traditional catholic views
- salvation comes through faith and good works
- the bible is a major source of religious truth, but not the
only source
Continuation: Counter Reformation…
- Society of Jesus (known today as the Society of Jesus), who
“sought to be the servants of the Church par excellence –
initiated by Ignatius of Loyola and his companion
- “the flowering of spirituality and the rise of religious orders like
the Order of the Carmelites in Spain (notable among them were
Saints Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross)
Council of Trent
- Council of Trent was the formal Roman Catholic reply to the
doctrinal challenges of the Protestant Reformation
- It served to define Catholic doctrine and made sweeping
decrees on self-reform
- helping to revitalize the Roman Catholic Church in the face
of Protestant expansion
- The nineteenth ecumenical council, opened on 13 December
1545, and lasted until 4 December 1563
- It sought to establish the definitive doctrines of the Catholic
Church, in response to the Protestant and to remove abuses
in the Church
- Pope Paul III: convoked the Council, oversaw the first 8
sessions (1545–47)
- Pope Julius III: 12th-16th sessions (1551– 52)
- Pope Pius IV: 17th-25th sessions (1562–63)
- With the intention of clarifying the church’s doctrines, imposing
disciplinary measures, fighting heresies and affirming
fundamental beliefs & practices of the Catholic Church
1. Trent affirms the due recognition of the Sacred Scripture and
tradition: the Holy Council, following the example of the
Orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with equal pious
affection and reverence, all the books both of the New and Old
Testaments, since one God is the author of both, as well as
those pertaining to morals
2. It emphasizes that “salvation comes from God as a pure gift,
but that it requires some measure of human cooperation which
is a middle course between Pelagianism and Protestantism
- Pelagianism: called Pelagian heresy; the Christian theological
position that the original sin did not taint human nature and that
mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special
divine aid or assistance or everything depends on human effort
- Protestantism: everything depends on God
3. It teaches the 7 sacraments to be instituted by Christ and the
Holy Eucharist to be an encounter of the real presence of Christ
in the consecrated bread and wine
- To believe otherwise would mean taking the risk of being
excommunicated (anathema)
4. It maintains its practice of venerating the Saints, its devotion
to Mother Mary and its recitation of the Rosary
- “the rosary is a devotion that through the blessed mother, leads
us to Jesus. it is He who is the goal if this long and repeated
invocation to Mary” – Pope St. Paul VI
5. It mandates the formation of seminaries where “young people
are educated trained in piety and religion.”
- such action was truly necessary and faithful because of the
priesthood
- counters the selling of ecclesiastical office (simony)
6. It establishes the index of Forbidden Books which refers to
the heretical writings against the church
Post-Tridentine Era
- The declaration and decision promulgated by the Council of
Trent exercised lasting influence on the Catholic Church for the
next four hundred years, until the time of the Second Vatican
Council was convened
- Trent indeed Brought changes in the Church leading to the
recovery of its credibility among its member
- Restoration of lost territories to the Protestants: Poland, large
part of Germany, France and the Netherlands
- Advancement of Christian education
- Improvement in Liturgy
- Formation of priests
- Definition of essential Catholic teachings
Conclusion
- With may problems and controversies the Church endured, the
Catholic Church had grown to greater maturity
- Corrected its abuses and continually implemented its own
reforms for the welfare of all members
- To the Protestant, the Moslems and other religious adherents,
the Catholic Church today emphasizes the need to be united, to
foster respect among all people even in our diversity through a
civilization of love and a culture of dialogue